


Sneeze and You'll Miss it

by Courageous_Dreamer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, HiatuStory July Challenge, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-05 04:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11569914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Courageous_Dreamer/pseuds/Courageous_Dreamer
Summary: The adventures of John H. Watson, reluctant Time Traveller. Unfortunately it's not the 'cool' kind of time travel, like in the movies, but perhaps... John might get his happily ever after anyway. 5+1 - Five times John hated sneezing and the one time he wanted to.





	Sneeze and You'll Miss it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Talizora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talizora/gifts).



> Hiatus July Challenge - So, I was struggling for idea and Tali-zora came to my rescue! Twice! First by providing a prompt - which was promptly swapped for her own idea in progress. So it's terrible to gift this story to you, because it's partially yours in the first place but it was your birthday...love you heaps, sweets!

He couldn’t remember much about the first time it happened. 

To be fair to John, it was on his tenth birthday and like most ordinary little boys he had other things on his mind. His sister was being nice in honour of the day, his mum had allowed a few friends to come by for the afternoon and there was cake. He didn’t exactly expect something so extraordinary to happen and certainly not how it happened.

John can remember feeling his ears ringing even as a strange pressure began to build up in his head. Then the tickle at the back of his nose started. At least the tickle was familiar, a sensation John typically associated right before he sneezed. 

There was nothing typical about a sneeze which blew his consciousness backwards through time to inhabit the younger body of his three year old self. 

He didn’t know what happened. He still wasn’t quite sure about the how. As time wore on, it became easier and easier to forget that at one stage, he had celebrated hitting a decade of existence in the world. It was difficult to remember things like that while learning how to master the jungle gym at the local park, racing cars with Daniel at playgroup and struggling to articulate desires and feelings generally, let alone discuss the possibility of being ten years old rather than three to his parents.

In order to cope, John Watson forgot that he ever was anything more than what he is right now. 

Even as John threw himself into experiencing his childhood a second time his parents struggled with a child they grew increasingly concerned for. John’s parents weren’t raising their son for a second time; they were navigating parenthood for the first time and couldn’t understand John’s behaviour and mannerisms. It was never anything they could firmly place their finger on. 

When John was old enough for school, he had a smooth transition. It was eerie, watching him walk calmly through the gate with no tears or dramatics after a short goodbye to his parents. He shook hands with his teacher before putting his backpack in its cubby hole and that was that. Reading, writing, basic mathematics – it all seemed to come easily to John. 

At parent/teacher interviews, while John quietly read a book out in the corridor, they were asked what kind of work they did with John at home to help him achieve these results. Initially considered gifted, it was established that he wasn’t gifted so much as focused, seeming to have previous experience with all the learning material. Mr and Mrs Watson could only shake their heads in wonder as they denied having any particular routine to help their son. They couldn’t explain it. John was just…John.

As John grew he began to remember more and more of his first ten years, began to compare this time with that time. At a physical age of seven with the mental age of fourteen, John considered his actions and the corresponding consequences in a way no child really thought about such things. He thought about the fact he was thinking of such things in such a way in the first place. Eventually he reached a conclusion about everything that had happened so far. That first backwards jump grew to be accepted by John as ‘normal’ or just ‘it is what it is’, for how else can a child who has nothing but his own experience to draw from possibly understand the reality of the unique ability he had.

\---

A sense of dread began to grow in his gut. It felt like a curious mixture of molten lava – roiling hot; and stone - heavy with lethargy. John was going to be ten again soon. The first time he had celebrated this birthday he had been excited to hit double digits. This time, he wondered if he would sneeze himself back to the age of three again. He didn’t want it. He didn’t want to be ten again if it also meant being three as well. He was sick of being so small. He was tired of all the limitations his own body placed on him as well as the restrictions of what was socially acceptable for a young child to say and do. He wanted more. He wanted to be ten for longer than a day, possibly even experience what it was to be older. 

John was something of an outcast at school and even sometimes felt that way within his own family. He was that quiet kid, the weird one, the strange child. He found himself more interested in what teenagers were doing and talking about than his own classmates. John caught himself wondering if being a teenager himself would somehow close the gap – he’d still be interested in teenage things even as his so called peers began to show an interest, surely?

John didn’t sleep the night before his birthday, the feeling of dread having turned into something cold and restricting. Sometimes, John felt as though he couldn’t breathe through the ice that had made a home inside him. The day of his birth came and went – with friends and cake – and no ringing in his ears or feeling the slightest urge to sneeze. 

Nothing happened.

As John watched the sun set for the first time on his tenth birthday, the ice on his chest seemed to thaw inside in correspondence with fiery glow upon the edge of the horizon until finally the ice seemed to melt as darkness took a hold of the sky.

John woke the next morning and requested a belated yet simply birthday gift from his mum. He asked for a calendar to track the months and days. He didn’t care about the pictures, dogs or cats or something to do with whatever was popular at the moment. He just wanted to be able to mark down the days in a vivid red marker, each day a victory against himself and whatever it was that made him sneeze himself back in time the first time.

Each day, he grew older.

\---

At fifteen, John resigned himself to the fact that small and short may just be what the fates had in store for him. He knew all about growth rates and hormones and all that jazz, but even as his mates towered over him, it was disconcerting when half the female population looked down on him as well before they even bothered to put on their high heels. But even as he resigned himself to not having a whole lot more height in him, he decided that his size would have little to do with how he conducted himself. He made it an advantage when on the rugby field. Any opponent who dared to think the smaller boy was in some way incapable regretted the assumption. 

John thrived in his new environment and embraced being a teenager. The gap between him and his peers had closed enough for him to have some really close mates - no longer was he that weird kid. Somehow, his behaviour seemed more age appropriate and reassured everyone around him, his parents included, that John Watson was actually quite normal after a bit of an interesting start to life. 

Every birthday since his tenth was celebrated the day after, by John’s request. Even as he dutifully marked the passage of time on his calendars and rejoiced in every day he grew older, John couldn’t help but feel there was something about his birthday. It seemed jinxed to him somehow. The night before every birthday, he would lay awake and stare at his ceiling, feeling the ice crawling through his veins. And with each sun set to mark the end of that one day, he would feel the ice melt and breathe freely. 

The day after, he would celebrate with his family.

He never stopped to think that it wasn’t his birthday that was the catalyst. Certainly, he never thought to suspect Christmas of any nefarious intentions.

John smiled at the decorations scattered around the living room. Red and green were truly garish colours when paired together and yet somehow, it all seemed so festive and happy. There was just something about this time of year with everything it entailed. He even tolerated Harry quite happily, all sibling disputes and rivalry put on hold for the holiday. 

John didn’t notice the warning signs at first – the pressure slowly building in his head and the ringing in his ears were just attributed to a headache. Too long staring at the blinking lights on the Christmas tree, perhaps.

The tickling in his nose grew and grew, until all the twitching and scratching in the world couldn’t seem to help it. It was simply unbearable. 

It was like lightning, the sneeze. There and gone again.

John watched a red sun sink into a dark green horizon and didn’t think the colours were the slightest bit garish. He looked down at himself, already suspecting what he would see and feeling strangely numb at the sight of blue pyjamas with multi-coloured stars dotted here and there. Pyjamas clad upon his ten year old form.

John doesn’t forget all that he ever was in favour of who he is now.

He’s not a ten year old. He wasn’t even truly a fifteen year old. He is, well, he is a time traveller.

He couldn’t even be a cool time traveller, like those ones in movies or books or anything else he’d seen or heard of. Who had ever heard of a time traveller with no control over his abilities, who was constrained by the whims of sneezes?

John groaned. How many times would he be forced to experience his childhood? Would he ever become an adult? How long was this going to take? Was there a number?

John glanced at the bare spot above his bed where he had pinned his calendars to the wall. It was no use marking time anymore. 

The vivid red marker would just be a lie. There would be no calendars this time.

John felt that same icy coldness sliding through his veins, settling in his chest. That ice would no longer be his companion only on his birthday each year, nor would it melt with each sunset. Instead, that familiar heaviness became the one thing he was certain of. 

\---

John was done with school and everything to do with it. He couldn’t hide the mismatch between himself and his peers, even if he had tried. He knew that they had tested him for being gifted and decided to play upon the assumption. He could be gifted if he wanted to be. He had a working knowledge of the education system to the level of a fifteen year old and the life experience of a twenty-three year old. He could test again and jump several levels to finish school early. Any qualms about what that would mean for him socially could all go rot because he felt more at ease with those who physically matched his mental age anyway. 

What was the use of being a time traveller anyway, if he couldn’t take advantage of this small thing? Nothing else about the ability seemed worth it, in his mind. With that thought, John hit the books and put his every effort into streamlining his education. He spent some limited time pretending to conform to the expectations his physical body dictated but largely allowed the assumptions of what being gifted entailed to give him more freedom. People thought a gifted child may struggle socially. Excellent. Perhaps he’d use that as a reason to socialise less. 

John kept a notebook, hidden amongst all his textbooks and assignments for school. It was a simple notebook with a black cover and blank, unlined pages. In this book, he noted down what he remembered from the first time he travelled in time, what he noticed the second time and what he noted this time. 

Were there any events which were consistent each time he jumped backwards? Were there things which changed? Were there things he could deliberately change? Was there something other than sneezing which served as a catalyst for his time jumps? Was there any logic to the ages he went back to or the age he was before he jumped back? Was there a purpose? Did he have some grand task to fulfil or an epic adventure to embark upon? 

Was his decision to finish school early this time going to be the difference which meant he wouldn’t sneeze himself back again?

John became very curious about the mechanics of sneezing. The public library only had limited resources but what he found was both disturbing and reassuring. Sneezing was completely involuntary, ergo he couldn’t choose to sneeze even if he wanted to. Yet something which reassured him greatly was discovering that one couldn’t sneeze in their sleep. He wouldn’t go to sleep in one time at a certain age and wake up another time a different age. He’d always be completely awake with every jump

So-called prevention techniques looked sketchy at best, ranging from obvious things such as removing irritants like dog hair or cleaning the house regularly for dust and dirt to pinching the bridge of the nose gently and breathing deeply.  
Yet John found himself utterly enraptured during his research about sneezing and the human body generally. Gradually, his books involved less information on the specifics of sneezing and more about the body and how it worked. When it came to make potential career choices, John knew with a stunning clarity he hadn’t felt in years what he’d like to study. 

Doctor. 

\---

John barely glanced up from his book long enough to grab the coffee sitting to the right or even paused in reading his sentence to inhale the tar like brew. As a child, he had been lauded as gifted and thus earnt his place here right now, studying medicine. This supposed giftedness didn’t help him pass his exams better than anyone else, though. 

The only good thing he had to say about a medical degree right at the second was that with the length of time it took to complete it, he could roughly pass as being a similar age to almost all the other new doctors, baby-faced and freshly qualified. He could also dress a certain way to play up his age – perhaps he could grow some facial hair – surely people wouldn’t question a doctor with a dashing moustache? Even if that doctor still lived at home with his mother because he wasn’t able to move out yet? 

John was chomping at the bit to experience independence for the first time in all his thirty years, no matter what his mother thought about his eighteen year old façade.

That said, you couldn’t wipe the grin off his face the day they handed him his high school diploma as he graduated.

On the days he wasn’t too tired to function, other students would catch John Watson smiling at random times and for no apparent reason. Sometimes, they’d wonder what it was that he was smiling about. 

John was just glad he was getting to be an adult for the first time in his life.

\---

On the day John graduated University, he was quite sure you could cut a vein and he’d bleed caffeine. Thanks to his shiny new medical degree, he’d be the one to apply blade to flesh, thank you very much. Nobody could wipe the grin off John’s face, stretching from ear to ear. Not Harry’s absence due to another alcohol-infused bender or the lack of any real friends to celebrate the day with.

He was a doctor. And no sneezing had gotten in the way of is achieving that in the last six years.

\---

Dr John Watson rubbed at his eyes as he closed the door behind his last patient of the day, wondering what it would be like if sneezing was merely one of several symptoms that pointed to something perfectly ordinary like asthma or a cold. It must be terribly reassuring, he mused, if sneezing meant naught more than a trip to the doctor and possibly several days off work for recovery. 

Although John considered that maybe the pressure building up in one’s head probably didn’t feel nice, ordinary sneeze or not. And certainly the tickle in the nose was confusing because did that mean he should scratch his nose or not? Would scratching help? The sensation didn’t seem to register properly so he could respond in a way that helped…

John sneezed. Loudly. Violently. 

He opened his watery eyes to see a pile of text books balanced precariously to the left of a battered desk, a mug of steaming coffee on the right next to some pieces of paper with several lines of text highlighted a bright orange.

John clenched his fists and banged angrily on the desk, spilling the cup of coffee all over the pieces of paper.

Black coffee merged with orange highlighter in a sickening, blurry swirl. 

John was no longer a doctor, merely one of many students attempting to become one.

\---

That day, John decided – fuck it. He was done with spending his time with his nose in a book. No more dragging around textbooks or feverishly writing notes or spending hours upon hours studying for an exam that was over and done with in the blink of an hour. John was done. As a qualified doctor, he knew all this stuff already.

So John went out and partied. He drank and drank. Then he drank some more. There were so many different types of alcohol available; he spent a fair amount of time trying to taste them all. He couldn’t fairly claim any as a favourite without having tried a broad range. 

Briefly, Harry became his drinking partner and wingwoman. Together, they would party, drink and try to perfect their seduction techniques. Eventually, Harry became concerned with John’s drinking.

He wasn’t stopping.

The only reason she couldn’t fully call him on his behaviour was because, despite the lack of books in John’s life, he was still excelling at university. He would stay up late the night an assignment was due and in a mad frenzy of typing, would write it up and hand it in the next day, grumbling under his breath about how he couldn’t bring his assignments from his previous experience of uni with him to this time. 

On the day John graduates, he does so with distinctions and yet can barely muster up a smile for his mum or for the camera.  
It felt so worthless. What was the point?

\---

When John’s body physically reaches the age of thirty, he considers it a minor miracle. He treats it exactly as such things deserve, by having a few glasses of scotch to toast the empty air of his flat. He looks around and sighs. His lethargic lack of purpose after his last sneeze jump continued to weigh on him, even now. He was thirty today. He just felt empty. He felt like the ice was no longer merely inhabiting his veins. He felt like his entire being was made of ice, like his limbs and flesh were coated with it. A dull, heavy ice that nobody would call pretty wonderful, simply annoying and…there.

When would he jump again?

Was there any point to attempting to achieve anything or was he just a sneeze away from starting all over again?

Even more dreadful, what if his last sneeze was it? What if he never sneezed again? Was this all his life was to be, from here on out?

For fear of a sneeze, was John to sit on his arse and be naught more than this?

John growled to himself before tipping his head back and swallowing the rest of his drink quickly, without pausing for breath. 

He would be more than this.

He coughed and spluttered through the last dregs of his drink, feeling the tickle from his throat all the way to his nose. With a quick shake of his head, he paused before settling deeper into the comfort of his chair.

He sneezed. 

John looked around his office at work as the door clicked shut behind the last patient of the day. He rubbed at his tired, dry eyes and glanced at the wall. Medical degree framed and in pride of place – check. At least there would not be another attempt at university. John breathed a slow, relieved gust of air out even as he checked the date on the desk calendar. Ah, only three year this time.

That was surprisingly manageable. 

John looked around the office, his office. It was perfectly ordinary. Nothing out of place. Except for him.

John smiled as he picked up his coat off the back of the chair. This wasn’t working for him anymore and there was a certain relief in acknowledging the fact. 

The next day John handed in his resignation even as he signed up to join the army as a part of the RAMC. For the first time in a long while, John’s lips twitched up in a semblance of a smile as he signed his name on the enlistment form.

\---

John rediscovers himself in the army. He finds a new purpose for himself in fighting whoever Queen and Country point towards. Slowly, he feels the ice which covers his limbs and flesh melt under the heat of the Afghani sun, his skin slowly turning such a bright sheen of gold it makes his blonde hair look pale. 

Here, he makes a difference. 

Here the days bleed into each other not because of a mundane similarity, but because each day is so strikingly different he couldn’t begin to describe it. Some days he is on patrol with his unit, where they scout different locations or come across different people and danger seems to be breathing down their necks. Other days, he spends in the medical tent where the closest he gets to the action is when he is trying desperately to save the life of the soldier on the table in front of him. Yet more days, he lazes around on his bunk, hazy from the heat and awaiting his next assignment. 

John can feel himself learning how to live once again, how to feel alive. 

Then the sand storm hits. John and his unit duck for cover wherever they can find it, caught in the middle of a patrol in unfamiliar territory. John doesn’t quite get his scarf up to cover his face in time and as the dirt fills his nostrils; he feels a familiar pressure accompanied by the ringing in his ears. 

He tries to gently squeeze the bridge of his nose even as it twitches from the tickling sensation.

John sneezes.

And finds himself in the recruitment office for the army, signing his name on the enlistment forms.

\---

John doesn’t mind this sneeze jump as much as the others. Sure, going through basic training a second time wasn’t exactly a blast, but he knew what to expect and what’s more, he still found some level of enjoyment in pushing his body to the limits.

John began to wonder anew if his time jumps were linked to having a particular task to fulfil. He began to wonder if he needed to play it safe or if being a time traveller lent him a sort of invincibility from everything, even delaying old age beyond the scope of what John considered normal. He was a fifty year old man; living in the prime of life in a thirty year old’s body. 

Experience and wisdom with the vigour of youth.

Experience, possibly but certainly not wisdom.

John began to take risks, because what did it matter if he would end up travelling back and essentially being about to start all over again. He allowed his recklessness to rule over his head and thus saved many, many lives of different soldiers primarily through prioritising their lives over his own. He’d get the chance to have a do-over. They wouldn’t.

John got shot.

It was agonising on multiple fronts. He didn’t even save the man he’d been leaning over as bullets flew around them, one piercing John’s shoulder. 

He lay in a hospital bed in a room with the shrill beeps and buzzing of various monitors, with crisp white sheets and voices murmuring in the corridors.

John waited to sneeze. 

He tried smelling the flowers on his bedside table in the hope the pollen would irritate his nose. He tried swallowing his water too fast without pausing for breath, only to splutter water down the front of his shirt just as a nurse arrived to check on him.

He didn’t sneeze.

John was discharged honourably from the army on medical grounds, unable to continue to serve with his limp and intermittent tremor. 

John felt all the ice which had slowly melted under the Afghani sun begin to creep back up and over his skin again, crawling and itchy and cold. 

He’d never actively wished to sneeze before and the one time he would choose to, it didn’t happen. 

The ice covered him from feet to head and John wondered if he should quit while he was ahead.

\---

“Afghanistan or Iraq?” 

In the blaze of Sherlock’s deduction and energy, John felt the ice around his eyes melt enough to see clearly for the first time in what felt like forever. He saw clearly enough to agree to have a crazy new flatmate. 

He saw clearly enough to shoot the cabbie.

He shot the cabbie because it was amazing he saw clearly enough to do so. And he would protect the person who had melted the ice which surrounded him enough to see anything at all. Perhaps, with Sherlock’s help, he’d feel less heavy and less cold.

\---

The problem with having a man like Sherlock surround you with his heat and energy is that the ice the John constantly felt sluicing through his veins began to melt. This was what John wanted. He didn’t know if he remembered what it was like to be warm anymore. Certainly, he’d spent more time filled with that icy dread since his tenth birthday than he had otherwise. If he were to really measure it, he’d say that was his normal. 

Sherlock didn’t really have time or patience for normal. 

The problem with heat and energy is that John grew to crave it. Once the ice had completely melted away and John settled into his life with Sherlock, he found himself protecting Sherlock again and again in order to keep that fire nearby.

John knew it was because he was scared.

Scared to lose Sherlock’s heat, but also scared to lose the man himself.

Sherlock was…everything. And John never said a word. Because that fear of losing Sherlock’s heat involved protecting Sherlock at all costs, even from John himself.

\---

If John thought that he had wanted to sneeze after getting shot, he’d clearly underestimated himself.

He didn’t merely want to sneeze anymore. He needed to. Desperately. 

Sherlock had jumped. 

Why?

Of course John knew the reasons Sherlock had given him, voice grainy over the phone and raw with the emotions Sherlock thought himself above. John had pleaded, reaching for the man high above as if the distance between them was little more than a concept. Easily swatted away as an annoying idea. 

Don’t do this. 

Yet another thing John had left unspoken. John didn’t want all the unspoken things resting in his chest anymore. He wanted to set them free, but only if Sherlock was around to hear them. 

He needed to sneeze. 

He was so caught up in his desperate wishes and thoughts that he didn’t notice when the ringing in his ears began. He barely twitched when his nose began to tickle. But as he took a deep breath and felt the pressure build and soar, he found himself crossing his fingers. He hoped. It was all he had left. Hope.

\---

John blinked as face of the nurse at his bedside came into focus, an annoyed look on her face as she clearly repeated a question she’d asked before. 

“Do you need anything else, Dr Watson?” 

John waved her off with a shake of his head and a small smile. He stretched and felt the bullet wound in his shoulder pull slightly, making him wince. Reasonably recent then. He had time. And until now, that wasn’t something John took great pleasure in, but now, now he felt his lips twitch as he struggled to contain his laugh of relief.

He had time.

“Soon, Sherlock. I’ll see you soon.”

\---

“Afghanistan or Iraq?”

It probably wasn’t the best response in the world, standing there with his mouth hanging open like a bamboozled fish, but John felt that comparatively, shouting out one of the things he desperately wished to say would throw the detective for a loop.

One does not introduce themselves by screaming their undying love for another, after all.

John smiled. This time, he would save Sherlock. He would not jump. This time, he would know he was loved. He didn’t have to return it, but this time Sherlock would know that he had saved a man by melting the ice around his heart.

He’d made a time traveller grateful that he sneezed his way through time.

Sherlock was everything. And John would make sure he’d know it.


End file.
